"Huh...?"
Axel couldn't believe what he saw, making him stare blankly for a sweet moment.
[Notice! You have acquired items beyond the System's protection. You will be exposed to the owner of the recipe/s you "stole"!]
Just as he was wondering if it was an empty threat or not, three windows further appeared, all of which were extra warnings from the system itself.
[Trismus Co., Kalbi Ltd., and Krypton Technologies have begun searching for the Harem Settlement System's User.][Once found, you will either be forced to pay the full amount or turned into a slave to work until you can fully repay the full price.][Estimated time before discovery: 300 days, 5 hours, 2 minutes.]
"...Fuck."
He was quite sure this was no longer a joke.
"I thought you said it was free?!" Axel growled at Navi, who was already acting as if he had nothing to do with it. "This is way worse than free, it came with a fucking time bomb!!!"
[I did warn you. But you didn't listen. Heck, you didn't even let me finish!]
Navi scoffed before disappearing the next moment. He knew that Axel would be venting his frustration by cursing, so he didn't want any part of it. Thus, emergency exit!
"Argh...!"
Axel was pulling at his hair in frustration.
He thought he was being "smart" about getting a freebie, but to think he actually pulled a joker instead... his luck was the worst!
"NO, wait..." Then, he took a deep breath, calming himself.
Checking the full details of the windows, it seemed that the other party only detected that he "stole" their recipes, but they still hadn't figured out who or where the thief was.
"In short, this 300-day limit is the time the system could protect me before those business owners could fully figure out my identity!"
Until that time came, he could still do things as he normally would, profiting through crafting and selling things.
"In short, as long as I earn 20 quintillion Colts before then, then I should be safe...!"
Of course, he could still face reprimand and repercussions, but paying the full amount of what he stole should alleviate most of the troubles. After reaching this point of reasoning, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Although it's an astronomical amount, I'm sure that I can reach it sooner or later..." he whispered. "After all, I've got a lot of new recipes now!"
Checking his crafting list, not only were the five items he got already there... but even the crafting recipes of parts required were all listed! That meant for each of the five items, he got around 10 to 500 new recipes each!
Still, Axel realized that he couldn't craft those yet.
First of all, he didn't have the money to buy all the raw materials needed.
Second, his system functions were limited at present. Most of the advanced parts required not only crafting, but also concoction and metallurgy, added to various "???" requirements that were still left to be deciphered later.
All in all, he got roughly 2,000 recipes in his list... and of those, he could only craft roughly 0.5% of them at present.
"That's still a long way to go... but well, I can figure that out later." Rather than that, the problem now was, after all... "MONEY!"
He needed money for his vehicle's weekly payment, he needed money for his new business plans, and even more money now to save his hide from getting turned into a slave. As such, he couldn't just sit still anymore!
Since Navi was hiding, Axel had no choice but to do things himself.
He checked the recipe list once again, looking for products that he could barely make, could be sold at a high price, and had a high demand. And the next item he locked onto was...
"Holy Water?"
Although he was shocked at this conclusion, he still bought the recipe.
It was a simple item to craft, requiring him to only need a specific shape of bottle and water.
The recipe was quite cheap at 50 million Colts, which included the bottle recipe, the cap recipe, the magic preservative sticker recipe, and finally, the holy water recipe itself.
And yes, it's a crafting recipe and not for concoction.
Weird, but Axel accepted it naturally, as there's no "mixing" of chemicals in any part of the crafting recipe anyway.
Without delay, he quickly assessed if his initial calculations were correct. He watched his funds, confirming that none of the required raw materials—other than water—were with him. His finger tapped the "+" button on the crafting queue, adding 1 to it. And as soon as he did, the crafting began.
First, it distributed the task to the crafting recipe of its parts, and those parts began crafting or designating their "sub-recipes" too. Along the way, the System also bought items from the shop automatically—items that were made from the cheapest raw materials.
Sand for the glass, silver ore for the cap, and magic stone for the sticker.
Each part was short, with the longest needing just 5 minutes to complete. Axel decided to watch it from start to finish, observing the auto-crafting at work... and in five minutes, he was met with a completed product!
"It's complete..."
Withdrawing the item, Axel sighed in awe while checking it from all angles.
The bottle itself looked like a colorful prism in the shape of a thin diamond, each turn changing the range of colors it displayed like a true prism or a priceless, faceted gem.
The cap, despite being made of silver, showed a rather unearthly blue glow.
Although he didn't know it yet, through the crafting process, the silver had turned into mana silver, or commonly known as Mythril. This alone padded the price of the product by at least twice.
But the clincher was still the main item—the holy water!
It looked like normal water, but instead, it was releasing a faint golden glow. Almost as if the water was luminescent!
"286 Colts, huh..." Axel sighed. "The shop priced normal holy water at 16,000 Colts... I wonder what this thing would cost?"
Since he had no hobby of waiting for answers, he proactively opened his panel and went to his shop's seller menu.
There, he carefully entered the item into the auction slot, setting the bid price to twice that of the market price.
After pressing the confirm button, he let out a soft sigh.
"Now, as usual... we wait!"